|
Stage 1, Hurstville Criterium, 30 kmsResults and Report |
|
The first stage of this year's Commonwealth Bank Cycle Classic began in fairly wet conditions at Kempt field, the specially designed criterium circuit in Hurstville. The circuit is well surfaced and quite short, being only 550 m around, and the riders had to negotiate 55 laps to a total distance of 30 km. At the start of the race, it was the Polish MROZ team who were setting pace up the front, and no serious breaks occured for the first half. Although there were no crashes on the twisty curcuit, the bunch began to split up very quickly, with many of the riders being content just to play it safe and save their legs for another day. Notable among these were Festina's, Marcel Wüst and Jonathon Hall, as well as QANTAS - One World rider, Scott Sunderland. There will certainly be numerous opportunities for these riders to shine in the coming stages. At the front of the race, things were starting to hot up, with Websdale's Jans Koerts (Ned), QANTAS rider Franky van Hazenbroecke (Bel), and Dupont - Gbr's Julian Winn all being very active. Winn in particular was riding an excellent race and was always at or near the front. So to was Polish MROZ rider, Piotr Wadecki, who tried several times to escape the rapidly shrinking bunch.
With two laps to go, the bunch was down to 17 and a last minute attack came from Slovenian Martin Hvastja (Bohemia), taking Koerts, van Haesebroucke and Torsten Willems (Ger, Bosch) with him. The pack almost regrouped but it was not enough to stop Dutchman Jans Koerts powering to the win over Franky van Haesebroucke, with Wadecki taking third postition. The Dupont - Gbr team just missed out on the top three, but still placed three of their riders in the top 10. For his second place, QANTAS - One World's Franky van Hazenbroecke was satisfied: "Jans was stronger today, and he deserved to win". I'm sure we'll see more Franky vs Jan duels in future. After the finish, Koerts confessed that he was unhappy with his yellow jersey on the first day: "I would rather be wearing it the last day than on the first," he half-joked. He will be put under pressure tomorrow to try and retain it, but will probably hand it over to someone with more climbing legs. The riders face a 130 km stage in the morning from Hornsby to Warners Bay, containing two category 2 KOM sprints, and one points sprint, followed by an evening criterium in Newcastle. The conditions are likely to stay wet however, for a few more days. For Complete Results.
|
